The Family History Library has microfilmed 117 reels of records from the Native Lands Commission at the Ministry of Fijian Affairs in 1981-1982.

Includes evidence books, clan genealogies, and registers of native land owners. The evidence books consist of sworn testimony on the extent of the communal land holdings of Fijian clans. Clan genealogies consist of sworn statements and pedigree charts. The land owner registers list the members of each clan along with their birthyear or birthdate, references to parentage and death date if known. In most cases there is an original set of land owner registers that was updated with a supplement; and a second set of registers that were continuously updated with new children born into the clan. Also includes evidence books for reserve lands and fishing rights.

The set of registers listed under each province as “Land owner registers (new)” is indexed by a card file that was also filmed. The index cards include information on birthdate and family relation- ships. The index number on each card consists of a: clan no., line no., and province abbreviation. For example: (7-676)Tl refers to clan no. 7, individual on line no. 676, in Tailevu Province

Land records were generated by the Native Lands Commission to provide legal title for clans to their traditional land holdings. A land commissioner was sent to each province to obtain oral testimony on holdings and clan genealogy. Information was then compiled into registers (Vola ni Kawa) of clan members that shared in the communal ownership of the clan. Vital information goes back to early 1800’s.

They are not available for loan within Fiji. See Film Notes for details of each reel.

Today I want to discuss websites that I find to be essential for researching family history in New South Wales. Genealogy has come a very long way in the last few years, with so many government repositoriesÂ and others putting indexes, and even images of the actual records, online. Here are the websites that I use most often.

1. NSW Registry of Births Deaths and Marriages Historical Index Search is a necessary first step for anyone starting on their family history. Starting with the people you know – your parents and their parents, you can then start putting the meat on the bones – the hard evidence of birth, death, and marriage registrations. The index allows searching for births from 1788 to 1906 by name and/or parents’ names; deaths from 1788 to 1976 by name or parents’ names; and marriages from 1788 to 1956 by either or both parties’ names. The upper search limit increases each year by one year. Once an entry is found the certificate can be ordered and paid for online. Current cost for a certificate is $25.00.

2. NSW State Records was previously names the Archives Office of NSW. Their indexes online has many useful indexes including some censuses; Colonial Secretary Correspondence; Convicts; Court, Police and Prison records such as civil and criminal cases, divorces, gaol photographs, police service records, and some early probate records; Deceased Estate files of the Stamp Duties Office; Education and Child Welfare; Immigration and Shipping; Indigenous Australians; Insolvencies; Land records and Naturalization. Additional records and series are added to as indexing progresses. The Convict and Immigration indexes are essential resources for finding out how your ancestor arrived in Australia. Some indexes are held on the websites of other organisations.

3. Society of Australian Genealogists is based in Sydney and is a marvelous resource for Australian research and NSW research in particular. Their research guides are enormously helpful – factual and very informative. Online databases include Convicts’ Tickets of Leave, Electoral districts for Sydney Streets, Soldiers and Marines from 1787 to 1830, and NSW Ships Musters 1816-1825. The catalogue shows what resources are available when you visit the library and is being added to all the time.

4. State Library of NSW has many resources that are also available in other repositories such as State Records NSW. I always check their catalogue to see if it is worthwhile to visit for records on microfilm or microfiche, both Australian and from the UK. They also have some records for other states. Mitchell Library and the William Dixson Library in particular specialise in Australian and New Zealand books and manuscripts. The State Library also has a vast collection of maps and plans, pictures, photographs and newspapers.

5. NSW Department of Lands is not an immediately obvious source for family history, and it does allow some limited property searches here. What I use it for most often is its Historical Parish Maps, which can be viewed in small sections from here. It may be useful before doing a map search to find the correct parish using the search at the Geographical Names Board. All the existing parish maps that have been superceded by more recent versions have been digitised and put online. Towns are included to the street level, and portions of land have the names of the original purchaser. Hours can be spent looking at these maps. CDs of the maps are also available from the Department.

6. I know I said there would be five websites, but I think the State Records NSW website must be mentioned again apart from its online indexes. This is the place to find out whether the records you want actually exist and have been archived. As the progressive indexing of their holding continues more and more records can be found by searching in Archives Investigator, their catalogue search facility. For example, probate files can be found by searching for the name and the word “death” as keywords (and using “All Words” not “Exact Phrase”). Their Archives in Brief series are very useful guides to the records they hold and are available online or in hardcopy in State Records Reading Rooms.

These are the NSW sites that I use most often in my research for myself and others. I would be very interested to hear from others if they disagree with anything on my list, or have others they would like to share.

Land records are a much-neglected resource in family history. Land and property is an important part of most people’s lives, whether they are paying off the mortgage on the house they live in, or rent business premises, or own farmland. Land records can tell us much about our ancestors’ ownership of, and attitude to, their land and property; they can tell us about the history of a house or piece of land; they can tell us who owned the land before or after our ancestors did, or who they rented it from. Land records can help to fill in the details of an ancestor’s life that make him or her seem more like a real person than a file of birth, death and marriage certificates.

Why look for land records? Land records can tell us much about the financial standing of our ancestors. Purchases, mortgages and sales of property reflect the fortunes of the landowner, whether it was farmland, investment property such as houses or business premises. An initial investigation of my grandfather, Richard Eason, a farmer and grazier in the Central West of NSW, showed that he started off with very little land and a mortgage to the Bank of New South Wales (now Westpac) in the early 1920s before he married, and later sold many parcels of land in the 1950s before moving to another town, indicating the increasing prosperity of the family. His father, John Eason, owned one small neglected farm when he died in 1933 according to his Deceased Estate File (for the calculation of death duties) but a search of the land records showed he owned many parcels of land over his lifetime.

Land records can also show us the history of a house or property as nothing else can. Who built the house, who owned it before our ancestor did, who bought it afterwards, who built the extension, when was the sewage connected, what did it look like, how was it furnished – these questions may be able to be answered by searching for relevant records. The signature of our ancestors may appear on some documents, and some may have been wholly hand-written by the ancestor.

What do we mean by land records? Land records are those created for the recording of land transactions – grants, purchases and leases, and sales, including mortgages and transfers. These records are generally kept by the Land Titles Office, now the Department of Lands, although some have now been handed over the State Records NSW. Old System land transactions and Torrens Title deeds show purchases, mortgages, transfers and sales, often with maps and diagrams. Parish maps show the name of the original purchaser or grantee of the land and that of the neighbours. Primary applications to change Old System land over to Torrens Title can contain much information about the family where proof was required of transfer of ownership. Conditional purchase files may contain the original request for the land. There are many different types of records that cannot be covered here.

Although some of these records, such as primary applications and conditional purchases, have now been archived with State Records NSW they can only be identified using Land Titles Office reference numbers, so a search must always begin at the Department of Lands.

What other records are there? Related records were created by other government bodies, and are mostly now kept by State Records NSW. Deceased Estate files relate to the administration of death duties, which were payable from 1880 to 1958, and may contain certificates of Valuation of Property, schedules of furniture and other assets, and balance sheets of businesses. Local government records include development and building applications, rate and valuation records, and maps and plans showing water distribution, sewage and the location of public amenities such as schools, parks and shops.

Land records are time-consuming to find but can be of inestimable value in filling out our family history and knowledge of our ancestors. In a later blog I will discuss how to go about finding these records.

Sources:

Land and Property Information NSW. A Guide to Searching New South Wales Land Title Records in the Queens Square Office of LPI NSW, March 2002 Edition. Sydney: Department of Information Technology and Management, 2002.

Regan, Des, and Press, Kate. How to Trace the History of Your House. Ringwood, Victoria: Penguin, 1990.

State Records New South Wales. Archives in Brief 29, 93, 106, 108Â and 109. Sydney: State Records NSW, 2006.

I am Carole Riley of Sydney, Australia and this is my genealogy research business. I can help you to find out who your Australian ancestors are and I can usually trace them back to their country of origin. I can also help you find out their stories and mysteries - who they were, what they did for a living, where they lived and died.

I am the author of Land Research for Family Historians in Australia and New Zealand (2012), Evernote for Family Historians (2015), and Social Media for Family Historians (2010 and 2012). I am a past Vice President of the Society of Australian Genealogists and former editor of their journal, Descent. I am also a past Director of the Association of Professional Genealogists. Read More…